Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls Level 70 Monk Builds

Here are a couple of builds to help you carve your way through the seas of monsters and abominations that are hungry for your death. It’s time to turn the tables and spill rivers of demon and reaper blood!

Build #1 – Blessed Hero – Click To View Build
Playing the Monk is all about persistence, and that’s what this build teaches you.

You’re a character that is primarily made to be a healer in multiplayer PvE games, while soloing you’re supposed to look towards tanking yourself and taking on enemies, building up Spirit and then releasing it in the form of powerful skills.

There are two Spirit Spenders in this buid, with one constant damage buff Mantra and a defensive healing ability. This makes it a very balanced build.

Your main (and only) Spirit generator is Way of the Hundred Fists. This is chosen over the other Spirit generators for its higher direcy damage, although it generates Spirit slower than Fists of Thunder.

The Blazing Fist rune associated with this skill will allow you to take advantage of Critical Hits (an absolute necessity with the Monk) to increase your attack and movement speed.

Unlike most of the other classes in the game, you’ll find yourself using your signature skill much more than any other.

Once you have enough Spirit generated, you’ll have two options: first is Tempest Rush, an excellent offense skill that can also be used as a means for escape.

We have chosen the Tailwind rune for this, but if you feel it’s getting difficult to control TR or you’re simply not dealing enough damage for the amount of Spirit being spent, you should consider the Northern Breeze rune.

The second option for spending Spirit comes in the form of the DoT skill Exploding Palm. This is a great skill for one-on-one situations and is meant to tackle bosses and elites.

A good alternative in this case would be Wave of Light if you’re looking to deal large area damage. We’re using the Essence Burn rune for additional damage here.

Your main power-ability is the new Epiphany skill, which is fairly similar to Wrath of the Berserker for the Barbarian.

Your Spirit regeneration will increase monumentally, and you’ll be able to teleport to your target’s location. This is a skill you should be using whenever you spot an Elite pack or unique monster, or when initiating bosses and Nephalem Rift Guardians.

Mantra of Retribution is your damage buff skill. Thanks to the Retaliation rune, its damage to attacking enemies is greatly buffed, and you can activate the skill for a large spike in your DPS damage.

MoR is basically a super-strong version of Thorns, which will allow you to deal with large mobs easily as they’ll constantly take damage.

Finally there is Breath of Heaven. A lot of people aren’t in favor of a direct healing ability, but BoH can be a life saver if you find yourself trapped and without the ability to use potions.

The Zephyr passive will also give you added speed, which can stack with the Tempest Rush rune and allow you to make an easy escape.

For passives, we’re using Beacon of Ytar to reduce the cool-down on Epiphany and Breath of Heaven, while One with Everything will keep a good balance of resistance.

Try stacking one type of resistance with your items to increase all of them and utilize this highly underrated passive. Mythic Rhythm and Chant of Resonance will greatly increase your efficiency with Spirit generators and regen rate respectively.

Recommended Gear
Three of your skills in this build utilize Fire damage, so try to prioritize gear that will increase the damage dealt by your Fire skills.

Additionally, if you want to do tons of healing, try going for items with the highly neglected “increase Health Globe healing” stat in them.

Most people opt to exchange this secondary stat for something else via transmogrification, but this can stack very well with your BoH skill.

Critical Hit Chance and Damage are very (multiplied by several hundred) important for Monks and Barbarians. If you can’t crit as a Monk, you won’t be able to deal damage at all, no matter how large your Dexterity value is.

Try to insert top-class Emeralds (at least the 120% Crit Damage ones) into your weapons (I would recommend a two-handed setup for this build, socketed Fist Weapons for greatly increased attack speed and increased Crit Damage) and acquire Crit Hit Chance stats (transmog if you don’t have them on a good piece!) on your bracers, gloves, and rings.

You should have at least 40 to 50% Crit Chance along with ten times the Crit Hit Damage (400% to 500%).

You want to fight? You got a skilled melee fighter right here. This is my personal preferred build for the Monk, as it allows you to take use of speed and the art of healing, two things that define the class.

Unlike the first build, this one specializes in dealing with large mobs and multiple foes.

For this reason we’re using Deadly Reach. If you can crit frequently, you’ll find that this Spirit Generator will be able to take out large mobs quickly.

If you’re facing a beefy mob, you have additional skills to take care of them.

This is a mob-focused mini-nuke build in a manner of speaking. You can chain a couple of skills in the build to destroy large mobs in a short duration, and it works equally well against Elite packs.

The trick is to generate lots of Spirit (at least 100), and then use Cyclone Strike.

Not only will this pull all the enemies real close, it will also heal you for all the enemies that have been pulled, and restore any kind of damage you might have taken during your Spirit generation.

Next, use Lashing Tail kick for a powerful arc-kick that has a chance to stun (Scorpion Sting rune). Finally, finally, if there is anything else left alive, you can finish it off with a well-directed Dashing Strike.

Now Dashing Strike is not meant just for that. In fact, this skill can complement and bring in the effect from your Momentum passive.

As a result, once you have dashed, your damage will be increased, and you can slap on an active Mantra of Conviction for a further buff. This massive collected damage buff will empower your Monk for around 4 seconds, making fights against tougher foes much easier.

Mythic Rhythm returns to further amplify your damage from Deadly Reach, which interestingly goes well with the chance to knock enemies in the air, a signature effect of the Spirit generating skill.

Fleet Footed will keep you speedy at all times, and Seize the Initiative is very useful if you are stacking Dexterity.

Recommended Gear
To take the best use of your Seize the Initiative passive, you should try to insert Emerald gems in your armor along with Diamonds for a mixture of resistance, armor, and damage.

Once again critical hits play a huge role in this build, as they can destroy targets instantly thanks to all the damage increase from skills. Try stacking as much crit chance and crit damage as you can, with emeralds embedded in your weapon sockets.

Both Daibos and Fist Weapons work well with this build, though I’d always prefer the latter for the added attack speed and possibility to have multiple weapon sockets to add some gems into.